Gobi Desert Diaries: Life in Camp

In the Gobi we tended to spend most of the day (from about 8:30 am to 7pm, with a break for lunch) out prospecting in the desert. It was nice to come home to such swanky digs each evening at Camp Bugin Tsav!

Because we had so many people (almost 30 crew members at one point), we had a fairly elaborate kitchen, supply, and dining tent setup, in addition to the two big supply trucks and numerous vans.

We each then had our own individual tents spaced out around the general vicinity of the big tents. Mine is the yellow tent just behind the blue one! Home sweet home! I feel like we should be getting sponsored by Mountain Equipment Co-op, since the Canadian crew uses so much of their stuff – I had a MEC tent, sleeping bag, towel, wash bag, vest, and several nice sport shirts that were a lifesaver for a salty dog like myself.

Home sweet sandy home! I took this picture after the very first night in Bugin Tsav. I was hoping to try to reduce the amount of sand that entered my tent, but was completely and utterly thwarted by a gigantic wind storm the first evening that blew sand right through the closed zippers. The storm was so strong that I had a little dune piled up on the windward side of the tent, the guidelines on the tent ripped, and I was being forcibly lifted off the ground several times that night. Several tents blew right down, and Premji’s lifted off the ground and sailed several metres with her in it! The next morning the wind was still going strong and it was quite painful to have any bare skin exposed to the sand.

On a few ferociously hot days, we spent the midday out of the sun in the big tent sorting through specimens and getting things organized.
And each evening, someone would proudly open the very exclusive Flamingo Bar for drinks and socializing! Closing time is whenever everyone goes to bed. (Yes, those are inflatable pink flamingo tent peg covers. They are very good.)